♪♫ Tea a drink with jam and bread....♪♫

I dislike supermarket bread with a passion. At home, Mummy always made bread and it's something that I really miss. She even sent me the perfect bread tin for encouragement (like I needed it!)
There's nothing better than the smell of freshly baked bread, nothing better than tearing it up, and nothing better than eating it too hot (whoever says you get stomach ache is just lying so that there's more hot bread for them to eat themselves...)
 "Oh but making dough and baking bread is so time consuming..*whine* blah-blah-blah"
Pipe down! Stop prevaricating, stop being so bloody impatient and do your laundry/hoovering/homework/cross-stitch/watch Eastenders... while waiting for the dough to rise.

I have now mastered the art of incorporating bread making into my everyday routine, it usually goes something like this:

1. Finish work, make the dough.
2. During its first rising I do some cleaning/tidying/boring 'grown-up' tasks. 
3. Then I use the dough as a punch bag for releasing stress (due to the concept of housework ever being created)
4. Then I start to prepare supper or go for a run whilst it proves a second time.
5. Into the oven it goes
6. Obviously the weekends are a different story altogether. A luxury of waking up, making dough, getting ready for the day and enjoying freshly baked bread for breakfast. Winner.

 

Wholemeal, sunflower, pumpkin, sesame and linseeds loaf after 1st rise

In Finland it is common to be able to buy fresh yeast in the supermarket, even the tiny 'local' sized ones. A stark contrast to how difficult it can be to source in the UK.

Allegedly there is little or no difference between dried/instant and fresh yeast, however, having used both numerous times, I definitely prefer the rising qualities of fresh yeast and the far superior taste and texture.

NB: A 20g cube of cake yeast is roughly equivalent to 2 tsp. instant yeast or 2¼ tsp. active dry yeast.

Yeast: what you might want to know